Simulation of the Effect of Faults Movement on Stress and Deformation Fields of Tibetan Plateau by Discontinuous Movement Models

Abstract

AbstractThe activities of faults play key roles in the movement and deformation of field Tibetan Plateau. In this article we built two models to study the motion state and stress field of Tibetan Plateau and its adjacent areas under the constraints of GPS velocity observations, one is continues model and the other one is discontinuous model with faults. Based on the difference between the simulations of the two models, we found that the existence of faults influences the modern movement field of Tibetan Plateau greatly. The effects mainly concentrate on following aspects: 1. Increasing the extending trend of the eastern and western part of Tibetan Plateau; 2. Augmenting the velocity of eastward mass flow of Tibetan Plateau due to the strike‐slip of faults; 3. Changing the motion state of Tarim Basin and Qaidam Basin. The simulation results indicate that the fitness between the motion field in discontinuous model and the GPS observations is much better than that of continuous model, which makes clear that faults' activity in Tibetan Plateau plays an important role in both of kinematic and dynamic, processes and the influence of faults must be considered in further researches on the dynamic mechanism of Tibetan Plateau.